Checking Out: An In-Depth Look At Losing Your Mind

by Catherine Graves

Making mistakes and owning up to them can be difficult, but feeling truly absolved is much more difficult. In Checking An In-Depth Look At Losing Your Mind, new author, Catherine Graves, does what shelves and shelves of self-help books could never do; Graves makes keeping it together possible by realizing that the poor choices and mistakes she makes has consequences and repercussions. By forgiving herself for her actions she is able to inspire others to see that there is life at the other end of immense grief. When her husband starts to act out-of-character and increasingly disinterested, Catherine Graves suspects the worst—but while she needs confirmation of one sort, a different type of nightmare begins, which becomes the toughest year of her and her two children’s lives - a dreadful year in which nothing for their family will ever be the same. Moving beyond survivor’s guilt and any sense of resentment, this poignant, bittersweet memoir is about tolerance and humility. Checking An In-Depth Look At Losing Your Mind is about a mother, a son, and a daughter pulling together in order to survive. Readers will respond to the narrator’s honesty—this sort of candor is hard to come by—and be thankful to lead less extraordinary lives. Catherine’s real-life story is as dramatic as any thriller; ultimately, it motivates readers to accept the things in their lives that they cannot change.

184 pages, Paperback

First published April 25, 2011

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were parts of this book that I did like, some of her insight into what she was going through, but I thought it was fairly depressing and very poorly edited. I saw an interview with her and thought it would be better than it was. I found myself flipping through more of the downer parts to get to her relective thoughts about what she dealt with.

[Iman · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was not exactly what I was expecting. This book is better suited for someone who has already lost a spouse and how to cope, I was looking for a book on dealing with the spouse and their erratic behavior while suffering with the brain tumor unfortunately there is some information but not enough I think because it was either just too short of a time span that he had this, or she did not want to make him look bad, or this is really just about her. Anyway, that's my two cents.